"I started off doing sound on plays at schools," Rob Halliday recalls, "but lighting seemed like more fun, so I switched and that's what I've been doing ever since."

In the time since, he has worked on a wide variety of shows, starting with the National Youth Theatre of Great Britain, moving on through the English Shakespeare Company and other touring shows, then programming the lighting for an enormous range of shows around the world.

While doing that, he has also kept working on designs of his own. "The first show I lit was at school - The Comedy of Errors - and then I lit a number of productions while supposedly working on a 'proper' degree at college," he recalls. "The degree suffered a bit, but it was a great, hands-on lighting education."

One of the earliest shows was Groping for Trouts in a Peculiar River, an adaptation of Measure for Measure performed at the Battersea Arts Centre in 1993; the show's lighting was nominated for a London Fringe Lighting Award. It didn't win, but Rob has enjoyed a long and succesful ongoing collabroation with the show's writer and director, Stephen Jameson. “I like working with people you know well; a short-hand develops where each person trusts the other to get on and do what they need to do and, at the end of the day, comment openly on what the other has done. The work evolves from there in a way that is very satisfying."

When asked about his approach to lighting, Rob is clear. "For theatre productions, it's the performer. Perhaps this comes from having worked on a lot of college shows where ultimately you have to be showing off the performer in the best light. But that doesn't just mean turning the lights on as brightly as possible; if you have a pitch-black stage with one person picked precisely out of the blackness the stage might feel dark, but your attention will be absolutely focused on that person. It's that feel - keeping your attention focused - that is my driving goal, but I'm always aiming to do that within a feeling, a mood that supports the show and the vision the director, designer and performers have for it.

"David Hersey once said that "lighting is about finding the rules for the production - but the rules change for every production, and I think that's about right. The scariest moment of all is when you turn out the worklight and turn on one of your lights for the first time. Does it do what it was designed to do? Does it fit with the production that's been evolving in the rehearsal room. And why do we always end up doing this with lots of people watching expectantly?!"

"My delight in lighting shows, I increasingly reaslise, is of having complete control - of being able to conjur up an atmosphere, any atmosphere we choose, from nothing. It can take a lot of thinking and planning to get to that, but when you do get it right - when the planning works, when everything just clicks, when the light hits the scenery in just the most perfect way, that is fabulous.

"Plus - and this is my favourite thing at the moment - being able to completely manipulate the audience, without them realising it. There's a moment in My Fair Lady when Eliza appears in the ball gown. If we've got things just right - if the light that gets her as she comes through the door is, perfectly focussed, if the cue is perfectly called, we hear a collective intake of breath from the audience. If it's not right, we don't. The bump up a the end of a big number is the same thing; lighting can help the audience to enjoy the show more, and those are the signs."

In recent years, Rob has found himself lighting larger and larger shows, culminating in his West End lighting debut with the musical one critic described as his 'guilty pleasure of the year', Daddy Cool. He brings to these shows the experience gained while programming musicals and other shows around the world. "Daddy Cool was quite a challenge for many reasons," he recalls, "but through all of the craziness of the production period we ended up with lighting that I was very proud of - and one thing about lighting design is that you realise you're doing a lot of it to please yourself, since other people either often won't comment or, on some level, won't care. Of course, they'd care quite quickly if the lighting wasn't there!"

He's also found himself lighting things other than theatre productions, seeming to develop something of a speciality sideline in weddings. "Those are fun - transforming an ordinary space into something quite special and magical, whether that's colouring the building or providing a magical walkway of candles down to the river for the bride and groom to depart by boat."

And the future? "I've always just worked on the principle of doing interesting things, and seeing what turns up. So far I've been very lucky in that interesting things have always turned up. Hopefully that will continue for some time to come!"